The New York Times
By MARK BITTMAN

In the six-and-one-half years since the federal government began certifying food as “organic,” Americans have taken to the idea with considerable enthusiasm. Sales have at least doubled, and three-quarters of the nation’ grocery stores now carry at least some organic food. A Harris poll in October 2007 found that about 30 percent of Americans buy organic food at least on occasion, and most think it is safer, better for the environment and healthier.

“People believe it must be better for you if it’s organic,” says Phil Howard, an assistant professor of community, food and agriculture at Michigan State University. Read Full Article »

Posted in Media/News

Bradenton Herald
By BRIAN NEILL – bneill@bradenton.com

Mitch Blumenthal thinks more needs to be done to ensure that organic foods are properly handled and labeled.

That’s why the owner of Global Organics, an organic foods wholesaler in Sarasota, supports a letter sent to President Barack Obama and the U.S. Department of Agriculture by a nonprofit group asking for better oversight of organic food handling and labeling.

The letter from the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute urged the president and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to Read Full Article »

Posted in Media/News

by Kathy Keeser
Special to iBerkshires

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – Want your impatiens to pop, your tomatoes to flourish, your grass to turn a verdant green? Then don’t feed them.

It sounds like apostasy but Bill Duesing says it’s more important to feed what’s under them. Read Full Article »

Posted in Media/News

Action Alert

Message to Obama: Please Fix the USDA’s Organic Mess
Overhaul of Management and Culture Needed

Please urge President Obama and new USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to take immediate action to repair the USDA’s increasingly dysfunctional National Organic Program (NOP). Suspect imports of grains, nuts, and vegetables from China and other countries, questionable organic milk, beef, and eggs from giant factory farms, and the erosion of opportunity for family farmers are plaguing the organic sector.

Make your voice heard by Read Full Article »

Posted in Completed Action Alerts

A city in Brazil recruited local farmers to help do something U.S. cities have yet to do: end hunger.

Yes! Magazine
by Frances Moore Lappe

“To search for solutions to hunger means to act within the principle that the status of a citizen surpasses that of a mere consumer.” CITY OF BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL

In writing Diet for a Small Planet, I learned one simple truth: Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy. But that realization was only the beginning, for then I had to ask: What does a democracy look like that enables citizens to have a real voice in securing life’s essentials? Does it exist anywhere? Is it possible or a pipe dream? With hunger on the rise here in the United States-one in 10 of us is now turning to food stamps-these questions take on new urgency. Read Full Article »

Posted in Opinion/Editorial